July Book Clubs at Kona Stories Bookstore

Kona Stories courtesy photo.

Kona Stories Bookstore hosts a number of book clubs each month. Groups meet to discuss works of fiction, travel and non-fiction.

The fiction group meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month. Travel normally meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m., but will pause during the summer months and begin again in October. The non-fiction group meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m.

Book club meetings are free if the books are purchased from Kona Stories. Otherwise a $5.00 donations is requested and appreciated.

Participants may bring a pūpū or beverage to share, and come prepared to discuss the following books. Readers may attend any or all of the groups as they wish.

Kona Stories is located in the Keauhou Shopping Center in the courtyard shops near KTA. For more information, call Brenda or Joy at (808) 324-0350 or visit www.konastories.com.

Bookcover courtesy of Kona Stories Bookstore.

July 11 Fiction Group is discussing “Commonwealth” by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett, an acclaimed bestselling author and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize, authors this No. 1 New York Times Bestseller about how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes the lives of two families.

Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keatingʻs christening party uninvited one Sunday afternoon in Southern California. Before nightfall, he has kissed Beverly, Frannyʻs mother, setting into motion the undoing of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Taking place over five decades, “Commonwealth” explores how this chance event affects the lives of the four parents and six children involved. The Cousins and Keating children forget a lasting bond based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows between them.

Bookcover courtesy of Kona Stories Bookstore.

July 25 Non-Fiction Group is discussing “And Then All Hell Broke Loose” by Richard Engel

This New York Times bestseller by NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel recounts the riveting story of the Middle East revolutions, the Arab Spring, war and terrorism seen up-close.

In 1997, Engel was working freelance for Arab news sources and received a call that a busload of Italian tourists had been massacred at a Cairo museum. This was his first view of the carnage he would continue to see throughout his career. For over two decades, he has been under fire, blown out of hotel beds and taken hostage. He has watched Mubarak and Morsi arrested and condemned in Egypt, reported from Jerusalem, experienced the Lebanese war, covered the shooting match in Iraq and the Libyan rebels who toppled Gaddafi, reported from Syria as Al-Qaeda stepped in, and was kidnapped in the Syrian cross currents of fighting. Engel takes the reader into Afghanistan with the Taliban and to Iraq with ISIS.

Throughout the book, Engel takes chances, though not reckless ones, and keeps a level head and a sense of humor, as well as a grasp of history in the making. Reporting as NBC’s Chief-Foreign Correspondent, he reveals his unparalleled access to the major figures, the gritty soldiers, and the helpless victims in the Middle East during this watershed time. His vivid story is “a nerve-racking…and informative portrait of a troubled region” (Kansas City Star) that shows the splintering of the nation states previously cobbled together by the victors of World War I. “Engel’s harrowing adventures make for gripping reading” (The New York Times) and his unforgettable view of the suffering and despair of the local populations offers a succinct and authoritative account of our ever-changing world.